Academician Andrei Gaponov-Grekov, director of the Institute of Applied Physics (Russian Academy of Sciences), who has contributed greatly to the theory of waves, won the 2004 prize in the physics and technical-sciences category. Gaponov-Grekov has developed high-resolution space radars for detecting underwater objects; such radars can also track remote space objects. Academician Andrei Gonchar received a prize in the mathematics, mechanics and information-technologies category for his outstanding research in the field of comprehensive mathematical analysis, the potential theory and analytical-function approximations.
Academician Boris Paton, president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, won a prize in the chemistry and materials-science category. Boris Paton continues to build upon the achievements of his father Yevgeny Paton, who had developed a new tank-armor welding process during the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War. For his own part, Paton Jr. invented an entirely new electric-slag welding method. Prominent cardiologist Leo Bokeria, director of the Bakulev Scientific Center of Cardiovascular Surgery and full-time member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, was awarded in the medicine and life sciences category.
Vladimir Kotlyakov, president of the Russian Geographic Society, who gained international fame for his efforts to study this planet's geographic past, received a prize in the Earth-sciences category. Scientists drilled a well through Arctic ice, eventually studying geographic conditions over the last one million years, analyzing climatic cycles and drawing conclusions about the Earth's future. And, finally, the humanities-category award went to Vladimir Kudryavtsev, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, D. Sc. (Law). Kudryavtsev is a leading authority on state law, criminal law, juridical conflicts and criminology.
